Elysium
by Destiny2
Summary: How far would some people go to have their wishes granted?
1. Default Chapter Title

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Elysium, Part One: Into the Woods

"Opportunity is not a lengthy visitor."- Cinderella, Into the Woods

**Author's Notes: **_In case you were wondering, "Elysium" is Latin for a paradise, or in classical mythology: the abode of the blessed after death. This piece was inspired by (of all things) the musical "Into the Woods". If your not familiar with it, the basic plot tells of different familiar fairy tale characters (Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack, Rapunzel) journeying though the forest to get their wish. It got me to thinking, just how far would some people go to have their wishes granted?_

Midnight.

The tree's gnarled branches reached up towards the sky like clawed hands trying to take hold of the stars. Leaf-less and barren, it had been dead for many years now, still standing only by some miracle. 

The girl that knelt before it was a dim silhouette, her form only seen partially in the faint light from the crescent moon that had set itself firmly in the centre of the sky. Her hair was sable, save for a suspicious streak of white that contrasted harshly with the darkness, and hung over her face slightly.

Her name was Lalita. 

"I wish…"

She turned her silver eyes towards the tree's top branches; nothing had changed. She frowned. 

Reaching to her side, the girl extracted a small leather pouch from the folds of her tattered, white dress. She opened it in one swift movement and, taking a handful of the ashes it contained, spread it at the base of the tree.

Something stirred to life.

"I wish…"

Now, when she looked towards the heavens, though she had to squint through the night's thick veil, a shadowy figure began to form itself. Its features were non-existent, as if someone had simply found a piece of star-less sky and cut the outline of a person into its blackness.

"What do you wish?"

The words echoed in the field, bouncing off invisible walls and seemingly originating from no point in particular. 

"Shiver and shake, dear little tree,

Silver and Gold, shower on me."

The words were ancient, and the spell rung with power. It was hard for her to remember exactly where she had learned the incantation…in a dream, or perhaps one of the old magic books that had filled Adwyth's libraries, but the past was hazy…

The tree shook suddenly, breaking the momentary stillness that had settled itself over the field. The magic in the air shifted and gathered at its base, bubbling towards the sky like a geyser about to blow.

The girl watched with wide eyes, half in anticipation, and half in disbelief. 

True to the spell, the key that formed itself above the tree's twisted branches was the colour of old gold with tips of tarnished silver. It dropped to the ground with a thud.

Cautiously, she reached out and brushed her fingers against it, drawing back as though it was burning hot, though it was cool to the touch. 

Lalita raised her eyes to the tree once more. Both the figure and the magic were gone.

She sat in numb shock for a moment, and then with swift movements, pocketed the key and in a flurry of skirts set off for the dark outline of the forest.

~

A sharp noise made Atala whip around, cape flying behind her. 

"Hello?"

Silence.

"Is anyone there?"

Nothing but the insistent chirping of crickets.

Mentally scolding herself, she turned and began to follow the path once more.

More than anything, she despised the woods at night. Far from the trappings of the human world, the forest was home to countless creatures…some magical, some not.

__

At least, it's not a full moon…she thought; gazing up at the thin sliver in the sky that could only be seen through the thin cracks in the canopy. Of course, the waning moon also meant less light…more shadows.

She stopped for a moment to rearrange her crimson hood, and shifted her basket, filled with dried herbs and several bottles of freshly brewed potions, from one hand to the other.

Even more than the woods, she hated the seemingly pointless errands that her mother sent her off to do. Mr. Desero was surely old enough to need help, but was he really so docile he couldn't walk the path into town and get supplies himself? 

Next time, she would have to remember not to procrastinate so much that she was forced to do them at night. 

Another crash resounded through the woods, and in the distance a flock of birds fled their perch. 

Atala didn't bother to turn. Or more likely, would have felt extremely foolish doing so. 

It was only until two other sharp noises, each closer than the other, arose, that she decided to let instincts take over and pause to gaze around her, remaining silent.

The woods grew eerily still, with only the distant hooting of an owl to break the silence. Atala hadn't noticed until now just how dark the forest really was, how far away she was from any civilisation and now….just how many beasts could mutilate her until she was nothing more than an unrecognisable blob. 

She whimpered and the solitary owl hooted once again.

~

"Where is that girl?"

The old woman wiped her hands on an old rag, turning her cold blue eyes to Damien, who was lounging on an armchair watching a muggle chessboard. There were only a few pieces left on the board, so intermingled that is what impossible, at least for new arrivals, to work out who was White and who was Black. 

"You know how Lalita is…"

After a couple of moments, Damien moved a white bishop, placing it between his king and a black rook. Having done that, he glanced briefly at the empty chair across him and returned to his contemplation of the board and his gentle drumming.

The woman clicked her tongue.

"You and your experiments. I can't believe you enchanted that thing to play by yourself. I'm trying to run a business and you're fooling with that human game."

Damien was indifferent.

"This business runs itself. There could be no one working here, and the customers would still poor in."

"Ah, but who would serve them?"

Damien ignored her, scowling as an invisible opponent placed his king in check. "Besides, it's Lali's turn to be on the floor now."

The woman narrowed her eyes, and emitted a small growl. "Well, she's not here now, is she? No one's running the bar! Go!"

Reluctantly, Damien waved his wand at the board and the pieces froze.

The woman sighed. "I'm sorry, but someone has to help…"

~

Lalita only caught a glimpse of the scarlet figure as she raced through the woods, one hand clenched over the pocket that contained the key and leaves tangled in her raven hair. Eyes blurred with tears from the wind, she didn't know what was happening until she found herself on the ground, free hand pitifully holding her head.

~

Atala watched the girl with wide eyes. Her skin was deathly pale, and her dark hair was spread out around her like a mane, horrible tangled from her run. 

She was clutching her head with one hand, the point which had obviously gotten the worst of their impact, and the other gripped her frock so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.

In the dark, she looked like a ghost. 

Atala scrambled to her feet, basket held out before her like a shield.The hood of her crimson cape had fallen and lay bunched around her shoulders. 

The girl was immobile. For a moment, Atala wondered if she was in fact dead, but the barely visible rising and falling of her chest told her otherwise. 

She moved forward and nudged the girl's side with her shoe. 

Nothing happened. 

"Hello? Are you okay?"

She stirred slightly and emitted a small groan that sounded suspiciously like "Ow", then releasing her head; she propped herself up on her free elbow. 

"Are you okay?" Atala repeated. 

The girl raised her eyes (were they grey…or silver?) to look up at her. "Sorry, I mustn't have seen you." 

A thick accent was prominent in her voice, but it was hard for Atala to identify it. The closest thing it was comparable to was the Northern Welsh cadences, which were common in the area, but still there was something…off. It was as if she'd been raised to speak another language. 

At the moment, Atala did not know that she was correct in her assumption. Although it had never crossed her mind that it was a language long dead. 

The girl stood, brushing soil off her dress, and reaching out for her shoe, which had obviously fallen off during their crash. "These things," she laughed, putting it on once again. "I've got to run."

Atala stood silent, not knowing what to say. It wasn't often that she was crashed into by wild-looking, young girls running through the forest after midnight. Especially not ones with streaks of white hair, who seemed oblivious to any abnormality of the situation. 

She watched as the other took off, disappearing behind the thick veil of the forest. 

"Nutter," she sighed, under her breath, listening to the rustle of leaves growing dimmer and dimmer until the girl was out of sight and sound. When she was gone, Atala allowed her eyes to wander around the area, searching perhaps, for some other unexpected visitor. What she found instead was a glimmer of gold, shimmering softly on the forest floor.

She leaned forward to get a better look at it. 

The object was most definitely a key, though as she saw now, it contained not only gold, but also silver.

_She must have dropped it when she fell…_

She stood straight once again and called out. "Oy, girl! You left your key here!"

As she had expected, there was no answer. Reaching out, she picked the object off the floor and placed it in her basket. Within her mind, a small war was going on debating whether to set out off the path in search of the young woman or to be the good girl she that was expected to be and continue her errand. 

_Well, it must be important to her_, one side of her mind spoke.

_Important enough to get eaten over?_ the other side retaliated. 

"That's it. I'm done being the coward!"

She said the words out loud in an erroneous plan to convince herself, and with doubts in her heart, strayed off the path and set after the girl, hooded cap flying behind her…


	2. Default Chapter Title

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Elysium, Part Two--Adwyth

__

Author's Notes: Read and review please! That's all I ask…well, that and a million dollars. So, if one million of you could be so kind as to send one measly dollar to this address, I'd be very grateful:

Happy Girl

666 Happy Road

Happy Land, Happydalia 66666

(Or, just one of you could send me a million dollars that would work too.)

"I've got it!"  
The words were out of Lalita's mouth the moment she stumbled into the building and spied Damien at the counter of the bar, serving a particularly ugly demon. 

During the early lights of day, the crowd that made up the club of Emania wasn't nearly as big as it got when the sun went down, and for that, she was grateful. It has always been hard to speak over the din of the mob-seized masses. 

From an unknown place, perhaps from somewhere on the ceiling or hidden in a shadowy corner, heavy music, bass so strong that it almost made her body shake in time with the beat, thumped through the walls and undulated around her. A brief smell floated on a breeze as another customer opened the door, and as soon as it came, it was gone. Lalita recognised the scent, lavender maybe, but could not tell for sure.

The numerous flickering candles were the only illumination inside the club, casting shifting shadows along its dark walls. Mist covered the floor, generated from machines hidden in the dark corners of the room, and the walls were painted so dark red that it could easily be mistaken for black. Lalita had once heard walking into the club described as "walking into Hell", but she had no ill things to say. She rather liked its gloomy interior. 

"You got it?" Damien spoke in Gaelic, the customary language spoken in town, narrowing his eyes at her. "Liar."

Lalita approached the bar, ignoring the glances that often followed her. 

She certainly looked out of place; a young, virulently thin girl dressed in tatters in a crowd of ancient demons, sorcerers, and the occasional werewolf that wandered into the town of Adwyth searching for shelter. 

Being the only completely _noctu liberi_ (the term such creatures had given themselves) town in Great Britain, though it was no where near as famous as the other all-magical settlement of Hogsmeade, Adwyth attracted those who didn't want to be found. There was a good reason for that. Hidden in the mountains of Northern Wales, few of its residents would want vampire hunters or demon-slaying wizards invading with the bloodshed of _noctu liberi_ on their mind.

To the non-demon world, Adwyth was an invisible town and it was intended to be kept that way.

"Let me see," Damien said, as he slid a drink down the bar to a Succubus. The glass contained a dark green liquid that Lalita couldn't recognise, and wasn't all to sure that she wanted too. Half the things that were stocked in the bottles behind the bar would be fatal to a muggle and half of those, fateful to a wizard no matter how many healing charms were performed. 

"In time," she smiled, enjoying Damien's exasperated look as she took a seat at the bar. "First, get me a glass of water."

He growled slightly and poured her shot of absinthe. 

"I said water," she spoke, but took the glass none-the-less, knowing it would do her no harm. A vampire could consume most any poison on earth and still live to tell the tale. 

"You better hurry up and show me. If you hadn't noticed, I'm the one taking your shift here."

She shrugged. "I took yours last week…twice."

Damien ran a hand through his dark, golden hair. "Look, you want to end this bet or not. Show me."

"Fine, just stop being so pushy." Lalita reached into the pocket of her frock, and dug about for a moment, returning empty handed. She frowned, and shoved her hand into the other pocket. Once again, she came out with nothing.

A slick smile spread itself across Damien's face. "You better pay up."

"No, wait. I have it…let me just…" Lalita dug frantically through her pockets, checking every possible place it could have been. She found nothing.

"I had it, I swear!"

"Yeah, yeah. So, how will you be paying…wizard or muggle money?" Both were equally valuable in Adwyth. 

Lalita was too busy cursing herself silently. 

"I went to the hazel tree, like you said. I did the spell; the key fell from the tree. I pocketed it and ran-". She paused.

"Oh no…"

Damien raised an eyebrow, ignoring a plea from a thirsty werewolf. "What?"

"On the way here, I ran into a human in the woods. We fell…what if she?"

"Lalita, if she followed you here-"

"No, she didn't, I'm sure of that."

Damien's sceptical look was difficult to ignore. "Well, you better get back into the woods and find the key, or you'll be loosing a weeks pay, _and_ the chance to see what the Mercy House is hiding."

"I'm going, I'm going." Lalita slid off the stool of the bar, and made her way through the crowd, exiting quietly. 

She didn't hear as Damien called out to her, "Hey! You didn't pay for you're drink!"

~

It didn't take a large amount of thinking for Atala to figure out that she was lost. Unfamiliar as the woods were to her, being off the straight path to Desero's cottage was even worse. 

In the small bits of the horizon she could see through the trees small beams of light had started to break through the clouds signalling the coming of daylight. Unfortunately, that also meant that if she delayed much longer, her mother would most certainly be cross with her when she arrived at home.

In a sigh, she breathed out, "Oh, this is bad…"

~

Remus Lupin had never in his life met another werewolf. That is, he had never met another werewolf if you didn't count the certain one that had bit him. But, that could hardly have been described as a meeting of any sorts.

So, when Albus Dumbledore had asked him to go on this particular mission, to recruit werewolves in Britain to the side of the Aurors, he had only agreed with some scepticism. Now, he was certain his initial feelings had been right. This was going to be much more difficult than it sounded. 

He had never wanted to come to Adwyth. It hadn't been Dumbledore's orders (at this point, he wasn't even sure that the old wizard knew of the place) but he felt that if there was anyplace where he could find his own kind, that this would be it.

He couldn't exactly remember how he had found out about the town. He had a feeling that perhaps it was just one of those things werewolves knew instinctively, like when the full moon fell, or if there was a copious amount of Wolfsbane nearby. He could remember in certain times of severe depression as a boy that he has wished he could come live in a place free of humans, and those who would judge him because of what he was. But he had never before had the courage to come. 

Now, as he stood in the daylight in front of the massive, gothic cathedral-style building that stood in the centre of town, he was once again beginning to doubt that courage. 

Though the rest of the town seemed quite deserted (he assumed this was because the sun had already fully risen) the music from inside the building could be heard even from where he stood. He could see a dim, shifting light from the cracks of the two vaulted, mahogany doors. 

Cautiously, fearing what he might find, he pushed the to doors open and stepped beyond the barrier, and…walked straight into a young woman.

She seemed to ignore him, and recovered quickly, skidding away with dark hair billowing behind her. "What is with me and crashing into people, today?" he heard her ask herself as she disappeared off the main road. 

He smiled slightly, and entered.

~

The light was growing brighter with ever passing moment, and that made Lalita slightly uncomfortable. True, most myths about vampires were so confused it was easy to see that it was humans that had created them. Of course, there was some fact. Blood was a necessity, but garlic, crosses, holy water and even mirrors didn't bother her in the least. A stake through the heart would probably kill her, but then, so would a bullet to the head or fire. 

Sunlight, though, was another story. Despite her being able to travel through it freely, it weakened her a great deal. And weakness, is something that no vampire could stand. The hunter hates being the hunted. 

At least, it hadn't taken her long to spot the girl. Her bright red cape contrasted sharply with the green and brown foliage of the woods, and for a brief second caused Lalita to wonder who would wear such a ridiculous thing, but then, remembered her own attire and thought nothing more of it. 

"Hey, you!"

She watched the girl turn and sigh in relief. 

"I've been looking all over for you. You dropped this."

She reached into her basket and extracted the key. In the day, it caught the beams of sunlight and shone like a wildfire. 

In moments, Lalita had taken it back once again.

"All right, all right, don't be so pushy about it. What's so important about it anyway?"

For a moment, Lalita forgot that this girl hadn't been raised in Adwyth and grown up with the legend of the Mercy House, and allowed her mouth to drop open. "You mean--..never mind."

"Oh, come on, tell me. What's so important that you'd be running about the woods in the middle of the night with a key?"

Lalita had to choose her words carefully, not being fully accustomed to speaking in English. "It's for our new house. We need it to open the attic. My mother had me fetch it from the key-maker…" she found herself at a curious lack of words. That was surprising. She was more than used to lying around humans.

The other girl narrowed her eyes. "Where do you live?" She pointed behind her. "Town is in that direction, I think. And why couldn't you just use a wand—" She caught herself. 

_Ah, so it's a little witch, then…_

"Oh, don't worry. The lock seems to have some sort of spell on it. Regular charms won't work."

The other sighed in relief again. "Sorry, for a moment, I thought you were a muggle. My name is Atala, by the way."

She watched Atala shift her basket from one hand to the other, and a moment of silence ensued.

It was Lalita who broke it. "I'm off then…" she said hurriedly, and head off in the direction of Adwyth without waiting for an answer.

She didn't notice when Atala began to follow her. 

~

"What do you want, Wolf?"

It took a moment for Remus to recover from the shock of being called such a name in order to answer. "Er-butterbeer?"

"Never touched the stuff."

"Gilly water?"

"Ain't got it."

"Tea?"

The boy only laughed.

"Well, what do you have?"

"You're obviously new here."

"I am."

Damien gestured to the back wall. "Elixirs are on the right. Brewed by a local, and honestly, I wouldn't drink it for the moon. Once, a vampire came in here, drank one, and left a llama. Well, half a llama. In the middle are the poisons. Only for the daring, which in that case, I'll skip completely as you seem like a water with a slice of lemon, type of guy."

Remus wasn't sure whether to be offended or not.

"On the left is the good stuff. Blood, liqueur, and spirits. And then, there's that yellowish bottle over there. No one knows what that is."

"In that case, I'll have a glass of water."

"We're out."

Remus sighed. This was going to be a hard couple of days…


End file.
